Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet

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Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet bigraphy, stories - Philosophers

Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet : biography

8 March 1788 – 6 May 1856

Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet (8 March 1788 – 6 May 1856) was a Scottish metaphysician.

Education

His chief practical interest was in education—an interest which he manifested alike as a teacher and as a writer, and which had led him long before he was either to a study of the subject both theoretical and historical. He thence adopted views as to the ends and methods of education that, when afterwards carried out or advocated by him, met with general recognition; but he also expressed in one of his articles an unfavourable view of the study of mathematics as a mental gymnastic, which excited much opposition, but which he never saw reason to alter. As a teacher, he was zealous and successful, and his writings on university organization and reform had, at the time of their appearance, a decisive practical effect, and contain much that is of permanent value.

Last works

His posthumous works are his Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, 4 vols., edited by HL Mansel, Oxford, and John Veitch (Metaphysics; Logic); and Additional Notes to Reid’s Works, from Sir W. Hamilton’s Manuscripts., under the editorship of HL Mansel, D.D. (1862). A Memoir of Sir W. Hamilton, by Veitch, appeared in 1869. (1873).

Place in thought

Hamilton’s positive contribution to the progress of thought is comparatively slight, but he stimulated a spirit of criticism in his pupils, by insisting on the great importance of psychology as opposed to the older metaphysical method, and by his recognition of the importance of German philosophy, especially that of Immanuel Kant. By far his most important work was "Philosophy of the Unconditioned," the development of the principle that for the human finite mind there can be no knowledge of the Infinite. The basis of his argument is the thesis, "To think is to condition." Deeply impressed with Kant’s antithesis between subject and object, the knowing and the known, Hamilton laid down the principle that every object is known only in virtue of its relations to other objects. From this it follows that limitless time, space, power, etc., are inconceivable. The fact, however, that all thought seems to demand the idea of the infinite or absolute provides a sphere for faith, which is thus the specific faculty of theology. It is a weakness characteristic of the human mind that it cannot conceive any phenomenon without a beginning: hence the conception of the causal relation, according to which every phenomenon has its cause in preceding phenomena, and its effect in subsequent phenomena. The causal concept is, therefore, only one of the ordinary necessary forms of the cognitive consciousness limited, as we have seen, by being confined to that which is relative.

As regards the problem of the nature of objectivity, Hamilton simply accepts the evidence of consciousness as to the separate existence of the object: "the root of our nature cannot be a lie." In virtue of this assumption Hamilton’s philosophy becomes a "natural realism." In fact his whole position is a strange compound of Kant and Reid. Its chief practical corollary is the denial of philosophy as a method of attaining absolute knowledge and its relegation to the academic sphere of mental training. The transition from philosophy to theology, i.e. to the sphere of faith, is presented by Hamilton under the analogous relation between the mind and the body. As the mind is to the body, so is the unconditioned Absolute or God to the world of the conditioned. Consciousness, itself a conditioned phenomenon, must derive from or depend on some different thing prior to or behind material phenomena. Curiously enough, however, Hamilton does not explain how it comes about that God, who in the terms of the analogy bears to the conditioned mind the relation which the conditioned mind bears to its objects, can Himself be unconditioned. He can be regarded only as related to consciousness, and insofar is, therefore, not absolute or unconditioned. Thus the very principles of Hamilton’s philosophy are apparently violated in his theological argument.